Dead Rising 2 – The Review

This review is for the PC version of Dead Rising 2 and for single player mode only.

STORYLINE

In a world where zombies are real, Chuck Greene (the story’s protagonist) a veteran motorcross superstar was caught in a zombie outbreak while in a Terror Is Reality competition, TIR is a game show where all contestants competes against each other using motorcycles armed with chainsaws and rides against hordes of zombies with the winner being the one who has the most kills. It began right after Fortune City succumbed to the zombie multitudes, we find our hero in a bunker along with other survivors, and after watching the news, they all found out out that Chuck is the reason for the outbreak. Now that the whole city overwelmed with zombies, Chuck needs to find his daughter Katey, rescue other survivors, uncover the conspiracies that led to the outbreak and whack countless zombies along the way. With limited amount time, Chuck can easily cry out at the top of his lungs, “SURE! NO PRESSURE!!!”

Dead Rising 2 is a 3rd person action adventure RPG, it can be in single player or coop mode, released by CAPCOM for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3 & XBox.

You’ll be playing Chuck Greene. After being framed for the zombie outbreak, you must go out and face the zombie infested city in order to gather the necessary proof of your innocence, before the military strike team arrives to rescue all survivors.

[THE GOOD]

NEAT GRAPHICS

– Before continuing, let me ask you this first. If you’re a dedicated gamer, what will be the determining factor that will definitely catch your attention? Altogether now… This game offers a high-definition quality graphics to your eyes content. This means that it is not just goric zombies and splattered blood, but GOOOORRRRICC ZOMBIES and SPLATTERED BLOOD!!! Take note that this game is rated M by the ESRB for matured gamers, so it’s OK for me to say those things. 😀

NICE VOICE OVER

– Along with the neat graphics and animations, it is also backed up with nice dubbing and voice overs. This timely vocalizations brings you inside the game like you’re really a part of the conversation.

UNLIMITED SIDE MISSIONS

– Picture this, when a populated city is overrun by zombies, do you think people suddenly dies? or flee? or for some unknown reason, magically disappears? A BIG NO!!! As you explore the city, you’ll come accross stragglers that you need to convince to come to the safe house, ofcourse, some are easy to win over, some needs certain items (like money or unusual beverages), while the rest are in the custody of resident psychopaths. If you’re a frustrated superhero you’ll find yourself searching every nook and crannies for hard-to-find survivors. However, I will stop you right here and say, “YOU CAN’T PLAY GOD!”. Between the amount of time that you have before the military arrives and your to do list, you only have sufficient time to to save a handful of survivors. You really can’t save everybody… Trust me… I tried… TWICE! 🙁

ASSORTMENTS OF WEAPONS

– Now this is a cool feature to discuss. I would like you to stop reading for a while and take a look around your room for potential weapons… All done? That’s the same way how you can find weapons in DR2. Everything you see along the way from the ever popular chainsaws and shotguns, to the average fire axes & sledgehammers, to the extremely weird poker chips, playing cards & dildos (Seriously?!). You can even use trash cans and flower pots and throw it to zombies if you have no weapons at hand or you can combine two weapons to create a more sturdy and a more powerful weapon, take for instance, if you combine a fire axe & a sledgehammer will produce a new weapon called “Defiler”, I assure you that one whack from this nasty piece of armament will send those zombie vermins to kingdom come.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiS11JWUH5c[/youtube]

ZOMBIE AI

– What I like most about this game are the zombies. Wait… I know this is a zombie game and it, by default, contains zombies. But throughout the course of the game you’ll notice that each zombie differs from one another, others are more aggressive, others are active only when you approach them while other upon seeing their fellow zombies attack you will follow to create a herd of zombies (these are the scary ones). At the beginning of the game you’ll start with just a few zombies, but as the game progress their numbers increase, as well as, their aggressiveness. So, if you would go out in the open and you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself trapped in the middle of a zombie crowd hungry for a piece of flesh!

[THE BAD]

MORE TIME!!!

– As I’ve mentioned earlier, you are only given ample amount of time per event to do all your household chores before the military arrives. This really sucks, given for instance that you’re a block away from a potential survivor and your daughters guardian texted you that she need her medication or you need to go to the safe house because a reporter wants to talk to you (WTH! can that wait?! A man’s life is just around the corner!). My advise to all you hero wannabes, save as much as you can but don’t expect you can save them all.

SLOW CHARACTER

– We all know that Chuck Greene is a motorcross superstar and a hardass individual who goes out a city full of zombies, right? But that doesn’t hide the fact that he runs like a girl! Most of the time you’ll be screaming and begging Chuck to run faster. With no sprints, and riding carts won’t help… It’s also slow. There are shortcuts but it only gets you half way. The only thing you can rely on are motorcycles, and other display vehicles, the thing is, you have to trek halfway across the city through zombie infested streets to find one, not to mention you have to purchase the keys from the hoodlum pawnshop. So, if you only have a couple of hours left before the military arrives and someone calls for help two blocks away, take my advise and sit this one out.

# OF ZOMBIES VS. SPEED

– In the PC version, as the number of zombies increases, processing speed decreases. As you approach the conclusion where the amount of zombie grows, you’ll experience system lags. It would be best if you stay away from open streets where zombies are thick.

ITEMS REFURBISHES ITSELF

– This is not a major issue, I just find it a little awkward that after you wrecked a location (i.e. took an item, smashed the cash register, break the windows, etc.), by going to the next building and returning back you’ll notice that everything magically returns to its proper place.

[OVERALL]

– Dead Rising 2 is a highly addictive game that you’ll never get tired of playing over and over. It will take you 8 to 10 hours of playtime to finish the game depending on your choices and with the games multi-ending, you’ll be curious as to what will happen if you made the right/wrong decisions. You’ll never be bored, because if you are, you can just fill your inventory with shotguns, granades & defilers (or you can add a chainsaw to your list of weapons for better results :D), look for a place where there’s a huge density of zombies (i.e. Open streets, corridors and the arena), and annihilate those zombie cretins to your hearts content while shouting, “DIE! DIE! DIE!”. For total enjoyment experience combined with stress releasing concept I’ll give Dead Rising 2 a 9 out of 10.